The perspective of the book is that of the author, William "Pila" Chiles, who uses the name Pila of Hawaii. The author uses both the first and third person point of views in telling his story of Hawaii. He uses the third person when he is discussing the history or presenting the theory and concepts. He writes in the first person when he is discussing his own experiences. This approach works well for the book since it is in part his own story of how the methods presented in the book helped him to recover from the psychological devastation he suffered after the Viet Nam War. He spent twenty years trying to find himself and explains how he was able to mend from the war only after he moved to Hawaii and studied the contents discussed in the book.